I know it’s not exactly the best way to get excited about a book, but I was immediately attracted to Fortuna, by Kristyn Merbeth, when the eighties synthwave cover was revealed. When Orbit threw in a blurb likening the work to that of Becky Chambers, I was done for. No need to complete the chokehold…
Continue reading ➞ Fortuna – It Favors the Bold, Also the Bad (But in a Good Way)
I’m not usually the guy on here to write about fantasy, though I do love it. If you went through my history, you’d see I tend to talk more about science fiction. But once in awhile, some fantasy books come along that I have to talk about. As you can probably guess from the title,…
Continue reading ➞ The Sacred Throne – I’m Putting It On A Pedestal, Try And Stop Me
I’ve never been a religious person by any stretch of the imagination. Our family only went to church on Christmas, and that was about it. As a result, finding myself excited about the prospect of the Catholic Church in space was a weird experience for me. Sisters of the Vast Black by Lina Rather scratched…
Continue reading ➞ Sisters of the Vast Black – We’re Nuns, We’re Nuns in Space!
After reading Broken Stars earlier this year, I became somewhat enamored by the idea of short story collections. I love that they can be incredibly focused while allowing the reader some room to explore outside the story. So when offered the chance to read Future Tense Fiction, a collection of works from well known contemporary…
Continue reading ➞ Future Tense Fiction – A Variety of Hope and Anxiety
As with a lot of people, music has played a defining role in my life. I never really played an instrument (fifth-grade trumpet does not count), but it was always there in the background guiding how I viewed the world. However, my tastes and attitudes in the past few years have changed greatly from my…
Continue reading ➞ A Song for a New Day – Playing Fast And Luce
There is something alluring about military science fiction. It takes the massive volume of space and narrows it to a single point: conflict. Often, this specific genre ignores a lot of the more nuanced questions that sci-fi often proposes in favor of a single query: what would humanity do in order to survive? Normally, I…
Continue reading ➞ The Cruel Stars – Vicious, Yet Dubious Fun
Ever since I read Luna: New Moon, by Ian MacDonald I knew I was in for a ride. You can read my review here. I’ve been wary to talk about the next books for fear of ruining its astounding ending, even though it’s hard to write about a second book in a series without discussing…
I would not say that The Last Astronaut by David Wellington is a bad book. It just didn't quite hit the marks that it set out to hit. The story itself was okay on its own; it did not feel entirely new to me, but it was not stale either. The possibility of extraterrestrial life…
Continue reading ➞ The Last Astronaut – One Small Step Into… Eh, You Should Figure It Out
I recently decided to treat myself by purchasing Broken Stars, a collection of contemporary Chinese speculative fiction curated and translated by Ken Liu. The collection had been showing up a lot on my Amazon queue, and while I was out at the store I decided “why not?” I had never really read a collection of…
Hot off the heels of Gunpowder Moon, I just couldn’t help myself when it came to reading another book about the moon. There is something so fascinating about that big, grey, dusty rock as it hangs in the sky. It captures me whenever I see it, so I will always look for a book to…
